Justin Trudeau lacks understanding of middle class, says Tom Mulcair

NDP leader Tom Mulcair speaks with the media during an end of session availability Wednesday December 18, 2013 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Photograph by: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
, Postmedia News

OTTAWA — In a prelude to next year’s federal election, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair has issued a scathing indictment of Justin Trudeau — warning Canadians that the Liberal leader will never understand the middle class and will abandon his promised “progressive values” the moment he gets into power.

The fierce criticism came in a speech Sunday that Mulcair delivered to members of the NDP’s federal council gathered in the nation’s capital.

Mulcair served notice that with 561 days to go before the Oct. 19, 2015 election, the NDP is gearing up to make further gains from the last campaign that catapulted it into official opposition.

The campaign-style speech attacked Prime Minister Stephen Harper on fronts ranging from health care and old-age pensions to the controversial proposed changes to the Elections Act.

But notably, Mulcair directed significantly more of his criticism towards the Liberals, who have eclipsed the NDP in public popularity ever since Trudeau became leader last year.

Mulcair took direct aim at Trudeau, who has made fixing the problems of the middle class a central tenet of his agenda.

“The problem is, Justin Trudeau will never know what middle-class means,” said Mulcair.

“He just doesn’t understand the real challenges that families are facing. Never has. Never will.”

Trudeau, the son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, spent many of his childhood years growing up at 24 Sussex Drive.

This winter, in a keynote speech at the Liberal convention, Trudeau spoke of how the middle class repeatedly voted for a “broadly supported agenda” of growth in the past three decades that saw investments in education, fiscal discipline and openness to trade.

But not everyone has shared in the “prosperity,” Trudeau said, warning that the consequences could be that middle class Canadians might reject a “growth agenda.”

Mulcair ridiculed Trudeau’s expression of concern, saying that the Liberal leader hasn’t proposed a single solution to the problem.

Drawing on his own personal background, Mulcair presented himself as a leader from modest means.

“I grew up in a family of 10 kids,” said Mulcair.

“My family wasn’t rich. We had to work hard and rely on each other. To help the family, I took a paper route when I was 10 years old.

“But we were fortunate enough to grow up in a time and in a place of incredible opportunity.”

At a news conference after his speech, Mulcair was asked if he was saying that Trudeau did not understand the middle class because he has never been part of it.

“There’s no question that you get to know the stories (of the middle class) by meeting people across Canada — connecting with them at a kitchen table.

“But it’s also something that is, of course, something that you have lived or haven’t lived. And if you’ve got no connection to it other than a line in a speech that somebody else has written for you, well then of course it’s going to sound hollow.”

Mulcair’s emphasis on undermining Trudeau’s credibility is a clear sign that he sees the Liberal leader as the biggest threat to the NDP’s future fortunes.

He is keen to maintain the party’s strong base in Quebec, where it won 59 of the province’s 75 seats in the 2011 election.

At Sunday’s news conference, Mulcair portrayed the NDP as the only federal party that has worked to embrace Quebec. He said he is the only party leader in the Commons eligible to vote in Monday’s Quebec election.

The Montreal MP said that although he and his wife live in Stornoway — the taxpayer-funded residence for the official opposition leader in Ottawa — he kept his home in Montreal, and that made him eligible to vote for the provincial Liberal candidate in his riding.

He contrasted himself with Trudeau, also a Montreal MP, who lives in Ottawa.

“You’d have to be a resident in Quebec to be able to vote,” said Mulcair, adding that this “gives me the ability to talk about it concretely and have meaning to it.”

A spokesperson for Trudeau said Sunday the Liberal leader lives in Ottawa “in order to be closer to his family.”

“Contrary to the two other leaders, he does not have a paid residence in Ottawa,” said Kate Purchase in an email.

On Sunday, the NDP announced that Anne McGrath is becoming its new national director. She will also be the party’s campaign director for the 2015 election. A well-liked veteran, she is a former party president and chief of staff to the late NDP leader Jack Layton.

It was under Layton’s leadership that the NDP’s Orange Wave in the 2011 election resulted in 103 seats.

Mulcair boasted his “team” will defeat the Tories in the next election to become the first NDP federal government in Canadian history.

He said the governing Tories are “mired in scandal and mismanagement” and are trying the “rig the next election” in their favor.

The Liberals don’t offer an alternative to voters, he said.

“Liberals pay lip service to progressive values while they’re in opposition, only to turn their backs on them every time they’re in power.”

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